Kindred
by Siara Elen
Summary: Colby busted his hump trying to save Bonnie Parks's life. And what did he get for his trouble? A one shot set a couple of months after season 4's Breaking Point, written because Colby all vulnerable breaks my heart...


_A/N. I miss Numb3rs. I loved the running, jumping and kicking in doors and the machine gun shoot outs where nobody but the baddies ever got hit, just like in the A Team. I especially liked how the maths was generally totally superfluous to the mystery of the week, so it mattered not a jot that my maths skills are limited to balancing petty cash at work and splitting restaurant bills between me and my friends and I could just enjoy Charlie's big brown eyes and floppy haired enthusiasm. What I loved most were the characters, the teasing and the obvious affection between them. I loved all of them, but my true love is reserved for the David and Colby friendship, which was always funny and often touching. And boy, are they both pretty... _

_I don't know if many people are still reading Numb3rs fanfic, but having watched the series for years the fanfic muse has only just hit me for this show. I'm pretty hooked on the whole end of season 3 and season 4 period, just because I'm such a sucker for vulnerable yet stoic Colby._

_This little one shot is set a couple of months after the fourth season episode Breaking Point. I couldn't believe how cruel the writers were to poor old Colby at the end of it, so here's something I wrote to cheer up both myself and the Colby who continues to kick in doors in my imagination._

_Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Numb3rs other than my complete collection of box sets. I intend no copyright infringement and I can't imagine anyone would want to pay me for writing such self indulgent wish fulfilment. _

#

It was embarrassing. Nobody likes rejection, but public rejection is doubly humiliating. Colby tried not to feel hurt. Bonnie Parks was entitled to react to her kidnapping and rescue in whatever way helped her get through it, but still, he couldn't help but feel a little stung by the way she'd shaken him off when he'd tried to help her stand. Like he was some over familiar jerk in a bar making an unwanted pass at her.

He had related to her because of her isolation which reminded him so much of the isolation he'd felt when he'd been working undercover. But of course, looking at it with hindsight, it wasn't the same at all. There were plenty of people who'd wanted to support Bonnie, who would have been happy to help her in her work and to be friends with her too, but she'd made her decision, whatever personal reasons had prompted it, to do everything alone.

For Colby it had been totally different. He hadn't wanted his undercover assignment, but the circumstances had chosen him. He liked working in a team and wanted the support and friendship of the people he worked with. He'd had very little choice in the secrets he'd kept and the lies he'd told. He'd given as much of his real self as he possibly could without putting the people around him in danger or compromising the operation.

Given how hurt the team had been by what they saw as his betrayal, Colby knew that for their sakes he probably should have played it more like Bonnie had, but he also knew had he done that, had he kept himself to himself over those two years and pushed away any efforts those around him made at connecting, he would not have survived the undercover mission. He barely had as it was. He also knew that if there hadn't been someone like him pushing it further than anyone else had the energy or patience or motivation to, Bonnie wouldn't have survived her abduction.

For all that her kidnapper had insisted that they were going to let her go once the zoning decision was passed, the fact was that Bonnie was dangerous to them for as long as she lived. She knew who had kidnapped her and why and even though they'd tried to take her evidence and destroy it, she knew what they'd done so she could just start from scratch, and she'd be adding accusations of kidnapping to serious fraud.

Richard Taylor was utterly ruthless. There was no way he would risk leaving her alive. He'd proved that in the attempt his goons had made on Charlie's life. He wouldn't think twice about removing any obstacle in his path and he wouldn't lose any sleep over a meddling journalist. Colby figured that the only reason he would be keeping her alive this long was that it was better to have her and not need her than the other way around. Once he was free and clear, she'd be dispatched and buried in a shallow grave somewhere. Or maybe entombed in the concrete foundations of Taylor's corrupt development, just to add insult to injury.

Colby wasn't sure what he'd expected when they rescued Bonnie. He hadn't expected her to melt into his arms like some movie heroine, he could see from the start that she wasn't that kind of woman. It was her strength and determination that he'd first noticed about her. He might have got a little obsessed, but he wasn't in love with her. He admired her, found her impressive.

He guessed he'd expected to see more relief and some acknowledgement that they had had a hand in her release.

Going on his own experience, well, he hadn't been conscious, so he didn't remember being rescued, but he remembered the relief he'd felt when he'd heard the FBI loud-hailer ordering his captors to prepare to be boarded right before Lancer injected the potassium chloride and he passed out.

The first thing he'd wanted to do when he'd stopped hallucinating and realised he was free was to thank David and Megan, Don and Charlie for believing in him enough to come and save his life. He was overwhelmingly grateful. Of course there were other complications, but mistrust and anger aside, they hadn't just left him to be tortured to death.

The way Bonnie had acted, it was almost as though she thought they'd happened across her by accident.

After he filed his paperwork on the Parks case, Colby had some time to decompress, take his surfboard out and think things over. He guessed what he'd thought was that he and Bonnie had something in common and as much as he felt for her situation and what she was going through, maybe also she was someone who'd really understand what he'd been through too. How scared he'd been and how alone.

She'd understand not just what it was like to risk your life in the heat of the moment, but to live up to an abstract ideal knowing that giving it up could save your life while sticking to it would most likely kill you, slowly and painfully. She'd understand the temptation to throw in the towel, and the cost of remaining steadfast.

Instead, she'd totally dismissed him. Hadn't even met his eyes, let alone recognised a kindred spirit.

Well, he got over it. His team, who generally speaking would tease each other mercilessly any time the opportunity arose, somehow recognised that this was off limits. David's sole comment was at the scene when he'd said "I'm sure what she meant to say was thanks." Megan had taken Bonnie's statement and Colby hadn't seen her again except at a distance from the coffee room as she walked to the elevator and back to her life.

He'd testified at the trial of her kidnappers, but her testimony had been scheduled for the previous day, so she hadn't been at the court when he was.

He put her out of his thoughts.

That was the good thing about being an FBI agent, there was always some new case to totally absorb his life, and while he occasionally felt embarrassed when he thought of her, like maybe he'd made a bit of a fool of himself in allowing everyone to see how much she had affected him, he thought of her less and less, and even if he'd never got that thank you, he was okay with it. It wasn't that uncommon to be met with ingratitude. After all, their brand of help could sometimes be a double edged sword, and he'd reconciled himself to that early on in his career.

He couldn't be sorry that he'd given so much of himself to her; she was alive because of it. She'd go on being an exceptional journalist and he'd be happy for her. He knew what he'd done for her, even if she never did.

And it wasn't like he'd gone entirely unappreciated. Amita had given him a hug, a kiss on the cheek and a tearful thank you in return for his rooftop amateur therapy session with Charlie. Ironically, Colby was too flustered to say much in return. He should have remembered how uncomfortable he was with accepting praise or thanks after the whole FBI medal of meritorious conduct thing had left him squirming with embarrassment, so he figured it was probably for the best that Bonnie had blown him out after all. He didn't want to look like a gibbering idiot in front of a woman that poised and self-assured.

So it was a total surprise when he received a letter a couple of months later. It was sent to the office in a formally addressed, typed envelope, franked rather than stamped. It looked like business correspondence. The letter inside was on good quality letter paper, handwritten in real ink by someone who obviously appreciated that kind of thing, and though the opening was formal too, the content of the letter was even more surprising than the fact of having received something from Bonnie Parks at all.

#

Dear Special Agent Granger,

I know it has been a while since we met, so it may be that you don't remember me, though I find myself hoping that you do. This is a difficult letter for me to write. I don't want to make excuses for myself, but being a woman in a man's world can be a challenge.

Since I was a child my ambition was to be a journalist. I had dreams of breaking the Watergate scandal of my generation and so when I began my career, I was surprised to discover that the expectation was for me to become a pretty face anchoring a morning magazine programme or covering fluff lifestyle pieces.

I had to fight tooth and nail even to be assigned the hard news stories and I had to be tougher still to be taken seriously by the kinds of men I was investigating. The types who see women as nothing more than the spoils of their corruption. I've had to fight harder than most journalists to build a reputation and keep it, and to get the kind freedom that allows me to seek out the investigations that really matter to me. There are very few women in the position I've built for myself.

I won't bore you with my entire life story, but I tell you this in the hope that it will help you to understand my actions when we met two months ago.

It probably won't surprise you to read that I'm not practised in asking for help, or accepting it when it is freely offered. In fact, you probably figured out for yourself already that I don't react well to feeling dependent at all. For me, it has always felt too much like weakness and made me feel even more precarious. Until I was kidnapped, I had always found a way out of any difficulty or danger by myself.

When I was locked in that basement, reliant for my life on the scant empathy of professional criminals, I found it very hard to accept my powerlessness. I couldn't escape or do anything to help myself.

I began to understand that I was dependent on strangers for rescue, and it was then that I started to think through how the authorities could even begin to go about finding me. I realised that I had isolated myself to the extent that there were almost no clues as to where I spend my time when I'm not being held prisoner, so the chances of being found were extremely slim. I couldn't even be sure how long it would be before anyone would even realise I was missing.

I have no family left and no real friends. For years I have totally immersed myself in my work and I had to accept that the privacy I had always guarded might become permanent, and nobody would ever know or really care what had happened to me. I've been alone for most of my adult life, but that was the first time I had ever felt lonely.

I wasn't badly injured and I wasn't treated as badly as I might have been, but I was subjected to a great deal of discomfort in being restrained and allowed to eat and drink only according to my captors' schedule. Not to mention hygiene considerations, which are too humiliating to recount here. It's bad enough that I had to detail them in my statement and court testimony.

My kidnappers claimed that they were intending to let me go but I very much doubted that claim and by the time I heard you and your team in the house above me, I was beginning to resign myself to death.

When I was released and for the first few days afterwards, I was quite shell shocked. It was difficult to trust in my freedom and I was very agitated and nervous. It was distressing for me to find myself feeling like that, because I've been used to going into dangerous situations with a degree of calm self confidence. I had felt so helpless and it took a great deal of self control not to allow myself to fall into the role of victim.

It was some time before I realised how ungracious I must have seemed when you and your team found me.

Your voice was so kind when you tried to reassure me that I was safe, and you were so gentle in the way that you helped me. It had been such a long time since anyone had tried to offer me comfort like that and the childlike part of me wanted to show my distress and be comforted and protected. But learning to live without comfort was what allowed me to develop the sort of personality that calmly takes on criminals and corrupt politicians and never flinches from the truth. The grown up Bonnie felt I had to stand on my own two feet and show that I wasn't beaten.

I hope this explains, if not excuses how rude I was to you.

I've found myself thinking about you frequently since that day and as part of coming to terms with what happened to me, I looked into your investigation, and, I have to confess, into you personally too.

I discovered that I was right about how unlikely it was that I would be found alive and well and I know how far above and beyond the call of duty you went in your efforts to find me.

When I looked into your life, I obtained an account of your recent undercover assignment, and I confess that I felt some connection with you when I read about your actions at the conclusion of that assignment. You could have acted differently and avoided the torture you suffered, but you valued honour and integrity more than your life. You couldn't countenance turning away from danger or buying your freedom by helping a murderer and traitor to evade justice.

Though I wasn't treated with kindness, and while I experienced great fear and discomfort I wasn't subjected to the kind of brutal treatment that I know you survived, so I don't pretend to compare our experiences in that respect. Still, I think that if I had offered to compromise myself and forget my investigation, I might have been released, and I didn't do that for the same reasons I think you didn't break under torture.

So I do wonder if you saw some parallel between us too and worked so hard to help me because you had been saved against the odds and you wanted the same thing for me.

Although we only met briefly, and although we're not friends and are unlikely to cross each other's paths again, I feel somehow that our experiences make us kindred. I think perhaps you understand how I felt when I was tied up in that basement with so little hope of rescue, and I have some measure of understanding of what you went through handcuffed and trapped on that ship not knowing if your team would believe in you and find you before it was too late. When I've felt afraid, it has helped me to think of that.

I wanted to write you this letter because yesterday I was awarded the Pulitzer prize for my story on the Richard Taylor fraud plot. Winning that prize is the ultimate recognition that all of my hard work and dedication and sacrifice has paid off.

But even though I worked on all of my stories alone, locked myself away and kept my cards so close to my chest until I was ready to go public, I know that I didn't win that Pulitzer alone. I know that I would never have written that story if it hadn't been for you.

So here it is, two months too late, but for what it's worth, I owe you my life and I am grateful.

From what I've read and heard about you (I'm admitting here that I persuaded a few people to reveal things about you that they probably shouldn't have, but you should know that I never reveal my sources), I get the impression that if I tried to say any of this to your face, you would be mortified with embarrassment, which is very convenient for me because at the thought of saying any of this aloud to you, I am filled with those same feelings.

What I can't say to you in person, I can write in a letter, and I excuse my cowardice by expressing the hope that you'll agree that, in some ways, this is better. You and I both have difficult, dangerous jobs that demand of us a great deal of sacrifice and I think perhaps yours offers even less reward than mine, so if ever you doubt the value of what you do and wonder what it's all for, you'll have my letter as tangible evidence to remind you of this:

I hope that when you see my reports on the news, you will know that I'm standing there talking to the camera, exposing the crimes of the ruthless and powerful and corrupt because of you, and any good I do in the world through my work is good that you have done too.

Just don't go imagining that this means you're getting a cut of my Pulitzer cheque!

Yours sincerely, and you can judge how sincerely by imagining how many drafts a person as reserved, stony hearted and unapproachable as I am might have had to go through to write this final version, so, again, yours very sincerely,

Bonnie Parks.

#

"What d'you have there?" David asked, noticing the paper in Colby's hand and the odd expression on his face, as though he'd been pole-axed. "Proof of the Kennedy conspiracy?"

Colby handed over the letter, not quite able to believe what he'd just read. A simple thanks would have been fine. An offer of a beer to pay him back would have been more than enough. This was... this was... what was this?

He wanted to snatch the letter back from David and hide it away until he could figure out how he felt about it. He wanted David to confirm for him that it was actually real. Nobody had thanked him that thoroughly or in that much detail in his whole life. It was overwhelming. He'd come to think that Bonnie Parks viewed him with disdain for presuming to understand her like some deranged fan. It hadn't occurred to him that she would expend one moment's thought on him after he'd left her sight.

But amongst her dignified language and understatement he'd read absolute raw emotion. She had made herself vulnerable to him in exactly the same way he had to everyone around him when he'd worked that case, trying everything to find her, feeling as though in saving her, somehow he would save himself. The letter had taken him back to that time when his every nerve was exposed and he couldn't protect himself from his own pain or anyone else's.

"Wow," David breathed. "So she does have the word 'thanks' in her vocabulary. What are you gonna do about this?"

Colby looked at him, bewildered. "Do?"

"Yeah. Are you gonna call her? Invite her out for coffee?"

"I don't... What would we say to each other?"

"I don't know. You could open with 'can I get you a coffee?' There's all sorts of follow up answers she could make. You know, then you've got a conversation."

Colby made a face.

"What? You liked her, right? It sure sounds like she's warmed up to you."

"I don't think that's what this is. I think she just wanted to get some stuff off her chest."

David's light hearted response was helping him to get a handle on things. Colby was pretty sure this letter wasn't intended as an opening for him and Bonnie to talk and become friends or fall into bed with each other. It didn't suggest she was planning to change her ways, become more sociable and outgoing. She was just acknowledging a truth that had passed briefly between them. They were kindred. Even if they never saw each other again, nothing would alter that. And really, it was kind of perfect just as it was.

"Do you mind if I call her?" David teased. "I'm starting to think still waters run deep with this chick."

"Shut up," Colby smiled, snatching the letter back and folding it carefully back into its envelope. "Clearly it's me she's into. If you wanna be sloppy seconds, though..."

"She just doesn't remember me because you elbowed me into the shadows so you could play the big hero and be the one to rescue her."

Seemed like now Colby wasn't nursing humiliation at looking like her sad celebrity stalker anymore, it was open season on the whole Bonnie Parks thing.

"She's got a point though," David added.

"Yeah, what's that?" Colby braced himself for the punch line.

"What you did, giving up everything, going to jail, and then the way you handled yourself on that freighter; it was pretty impressive, man." David blew out a breath. "I know I never said anything at the time, 'cause I was kind of messed up."

Colby felt himself turn bright red. He didn't know where to look, let alone what to say. David stood and squeezed his shoulder.

"I know Bonnie wouldn't give me away, but I was one of her sources."

David headed for the coffee room. He'd give his partner a few minutes to get his head around that one before they headed out to question their latest suspect.

#

The end.

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